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GEOGRAPHY FRONTIERS

These are one-of-a-kind journeys in which a small number of participants join intrepid geographer, traveller, photographer, and writer Victor Paul Borg on one of his inimitable odysseys. It would be a trip of travel research and photography that is conducted to procure material on the given subject or destination – this material is then used in printed matter and in the creation of new tours for Pepper Mountains. These journeys take place in emerging or remote destinations that are outstanding for their nature and culture. Victor goes far: a lust for unspoiled outdoors or untouched cultures has led him to reach many places before anyone else. Most famously, he was the first person ever to sleep with the famed People of the Caves in a remote crater in the Philippines.

By joining Victor on one of his odysseys, you get to experience the classical rewards of travel that drives travel writers – a sense of discovery and unpredictability, and a chance to view a different part of the world before it’s subsumed by the homogeneity of globalization. You learn lessons that you will carry with you all your life, and you’ll meet people who believe that our arrival is a mystical event – people for whom tourism has no meaning or monetary value. These constitute thrilling and immersive adventures.

Some journeys are predictable and straightforward forays to accessible places. Others are more far out, and in some cases you will experience the unpredictability of travel – such as arriving somewhere not knowing where you’ll lodge or what you’ll eat – that can unnerve certain people. It’s all part of the travel experience, and you will be in capable hands: Victor has proven, during 20 years of writing about travel, to be a competent traveller who can go further than most of his peers.

Join Victor on a dream trip that is different than anything else you have done, and also learn something about the work of the travel writer and photographer on the road. These travels are typically planned several months in advance. Below are brief introductions of some planned trips: if you are interested in the travels below, please write to us for more details. Details of upcoming journeys, as well as prices, will be discussed individually with each interested participant.

Upcoming Geography Travels: 

Qiang-Tibetan Corridor

The so-called Qiang-Tibetan corridor consists of thousands of villages scattered along the Mingjiang River valley and its tributaries. The villages display cultural influences of the Qiang people – one of the world’s oldest ethnic group – and other peoples of Tibetan stock. The villages are built in steep slopes at elevations of around 3,000 metres, and these tight-knit villages, with their stone houses and old towers, surrounded by terraced fields, have remained isolated from the wider world. Such isolation has ensured their preservation: many inhabitants still wear old costumes and live according to traditional diktats. Villages display unique architecture, customs, and ways of life. And the villagers lead a harsh life, partly as a result of the altitude and climate, and partly as a result of the treacherous terrain: the villages are literally at the cloud level and they cling to steep slopes. Victor will be travelling in the area to find new destinations for tours – in the near future, Pepper Mountains will have a tour built only on Qiang-Tibetan peoples and local geography – and the idea is to snoop around in hidden valleys to find villages that are still faithful to the old times. We will explore the villages and then in some instances go walking or horse-riding deeper into the valleys to find new routes for treks and to reach even remoter villages…

Baikal New Routes

Lake Baikal isn’t only the deepest lake in the world, it’s also one of the remotest and least-developed regions on earth. It’s impossible to overstate that fact: take a boat along the length of the lake, which is 600kms long, and you will be mesmerized by the hundreds of kilometres of pure wilderness where human presence is virtually nil. The lake is also a unique environment with a high proportion of endemic species and one of the richest self-contained ecosystems on earth. Add to this the varied coast of mountains, cliffs, beaches, and small villages of bright-coloured log buildings scattered along its shore, and you have one of those few places in the world that are truly unique. But travelling to Baikal is a major hassle exactly because of lack of infrastructure: no roads and no form of organized transport actually reaches large swathes of the shore, especially the purer parts of the shoreline. Victor will travel to some of the remoter corners of the lake by a variety of means, using local contacts (Victor will travel in Baikal with a local naturalist and writer who intimately knows the lake) and private boats and skippers. Join Victor and you will get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see untouched landscapes of Baikal that would otherwise be impossible to reach by yourself…

Across the Sahara

The Sahara desert reveals its haunting spell during our long caravan expedition. Victor’s planned trip – the second one – in the Sahara penetrates the heart of the world’s largest desert, visiting some of its remotest areas. The landscape is otherworldly – ranges of massive sand dunes, lakes fringed with date palms, coal-coloured mountains, plains of utter nothingness, disfigured and gnarled acacias flourishing in valleys, forests of palms and tamarisk and acacia in the oases, prehistoric rock art scattered throughout the mountains – it is like being in a different planet. Now join Victor on a journey by jeep across the central Sahara – it’s a journey that takes three weeks and winds through a variety of terrains. There is only one way to go across when you reach a spine of mountains in the centre of the Sahara, and Victor is able to secure two drivers who know of the narrow opening in a gorge where a vehicle can get out of the labyrinthine mountain gorges. It’s a route that few people have ever done…